3 powerful ways to read with your child start here.
Want to help your child become a better reader? Here are three key phrases to read with your child.
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RELATED: WONDER: Playing to Learn is our online course for a crash course on what your child is learning and how to extend ideas through play.
Read to, with, and by your child.
It sounds simple, and the best way to become a better reader is to read more often. – This goes for both struggling and fluent readers! Read more, gain more practice and knowledge.
We can help our children become better readers at home by practicing and understanding these three phrases.
And I get it! The hard part is making time to continue reading to, with, and by our children, as they grow older. We are pulled in a million directions and need to decide what stays on our daily rotation.
So let’s sum up reading with children at home in three easy-to-remember key phrases to get started and minimize the pressure of adding one more thing to our to-do list.
Fun, fascinating fact? Balance practice may also help improve reading!
Why is it important to read to children at home?
We hear and recognize that reading is important. Let’s take a look at why reading is so important.
Here are a few of the main reasons we will continue reading to, with, and by our children at home long after learning how to read themselves.
Here are the benefits of creating an at-home reading environment:
- Builds attention span
- Introduces sequence of events beyond beginning, middle, and end
- Themes of books help build empathy and introduce new ways of thinking
- New language and vocabulary is introduced
- Readers make predictions and connections between text and the world around them.
- Enhances listening skills
- Understanding that authors write books and artists do the illustrations
- Develop deeper opinions based on the theme of the book read
- Builds a connection between you and your child
RELATED: Here are my favorite books for a Kindergarten read-aloud.
Read TO your child well past Kindergarten.
With my toddler and preschoolers, I especially enjoy making time for book activities that follow our reading. This reinforces the plot and also allows time for play to expand on the story. These are great ways to make connections beyond the book!
Here’s an excellent list of early literacy tips from the Project Enlightenment Early Childhood Program.
When selecting books for kids at home, I consider the following:
- Child’s attention span
- Length of the book
- Size of the book
- Size of font – I look for a larger font
- The layout of the book
- Text features of the book such as photographs, table of contents, glossary, indexes, sidebars, and headings.
Include your children when choosing a new book to read, along with seeking out new books to introduce based on current interests. There are books on just about anything and everything you may wish for!
RELATED: These 40+ back-to-school books are another collection of all-time favorites!
Reading WITH my child has taught me so much about his reading style.
I want to help my early reader improve his fluency (the rhythm and speed he reads) along with comprehension (how he understands what he just read). I also want to look closely at the new vocabulary introduced within a story and see how he attacks it to sound out.
I’ve learned that my early reader mumbles words he may not have seen before (common for kids) and has excellent comprehension.
I know this because last school year, I made the time to intentionally read WITH him even though he plows through books on his own every night before bedtime.
Picking a new book is a goal of mine as we enter back into the school year. Together, we will take turns reading each page and discussing the book here and there as we go.
The best way to better understand your child’s reading level is by reading together. I promise it is that simple!
As we read, I am not critical of how he reads or the words he gets correct.
Instead, I listen, take mental notes, and maybe divide out a word as I read to model a reading strategy rather than mumbling over it.
Picking a new book is a goal of mine as we enter back into the school year. Together, we will take turns reading each page and discussing the book here and there as we go.
Like most things in parenting, we need to read alongside our children to model the value of reading.
Pick a time each day to grab a book or soemthing to read. It may be a few pages here and there, but they take notice!
We can also model reading outside of the home!
Before your child words, model the value of learning how to read by sharing what the words say in restaurant menus, maps in the park, or even putting together that new LEGO set.
Grab a book, and take some time to read to, with, and by your child even amongst the hustle of every day.
Want to keep this information on the fridge? I’ve got that!
Read to, with, and by children DOWNLOAD.
